


Radio Silence

by kyanve



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Mention of Minor Character Death, Season 2 spoilers, post season 2 end, shiro is sir not appearing in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 13:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11624328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: Pidge starts a project to find a way to call home and contact their families, and recruits Slav to make sure it can't be traced.  She loses track of working on it in the excitement; Slav doesn't.And after the events of the last battle, while the Castle is damaged and recovering, they all need it.(Title and chapter titles are references to Radio Silence by Styx.)Artwork included by Ninnani!





	1. Anybody, Can You Hear Me?  I Need A Little Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> Cover art is [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11624544) With many thanks!

Pidge didn’t often talk about her side projects with the others. This one was something she’d started on long before; messing with coding, frequencies, and encryption more than anything else. 

A few times she’d pondered bothering Hunk, but the problems mostly weren’t mechanical, they were a lack of familiarity with what technology Zarkon had for monitoring and decoding transmissions - 

And she didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up if she couldn’t make it work.

Slav’s rescue gave a new opportunity there, even if it required a bit of ambushing on the side while they were on the way to Olkarion.

When the inventor wasn’t running around the ship rearranging things in ways that made little rhyme or reason to anyone else, he was usually sitting in a ring of light-panels, going from screen to screen with lines of code, bits of designs, and probability charts and logs. She had to learn over and into the thin crack between two of them, calling his name for a few minutes to get his attention.

Slav stared at her suspiciously; the Voltron team wasn’t prone to seeking him out when there wasn’t a reason. “Yes? What is it that you require?” 

“I have - Look, there’s something I’ve been working on that I could use a hand with. Much lower priority than any of the battle plans, but… I’ve got two major problems and I know you’ve already solved one of them, since the Blade can communicate without getting listened in on.”

He coiled around to lean in, the gleam of sensing a challenge in his eyes. “…I’m listening…”

************************

He’d declared it a fairly simple problem, and said he would get something added to her base designs as soon as he had time in between preparations for the final battle.

She’d almost forgotten about it by that point, and after the battle they had so much more to worry about.

They’d fled to somewhere with a few convenient gas giants and a star that put out a good amount of background radiation, to hide and do repairs; the Castle was half-dead. Coran kept it on functioning power only long enough to do a few sweeps through the gas giants, putting out filtration scoops from the Castle to collect resources to bolster its self-repair routines, then pulled into a hidden pocket in orbit, powering everything down except life support and gravity in a few small emergency shelter rooms. 

He kept her, Hunk, and Slav busy for a few days, covering most of the castle; the crystal was intact, but beyond that, it was worse off than it had been after Sendak’s assault. 

And her phone had gone missing somewhere before the battle. 

She hadn’t thought about it much when she first realized it was missing, but with everything else, not being able to find it was dangerously close to being a last straw dropping on her sanity. When they had a break, she tore through the emergency shelter like a small tornado, determined to search every single compartment and cranny.

Lance was sprawled against one of the walls, sitting upside down, watching her go through the storage panels in the walls. Most of the others were looking over occasionally, but he was the only one not trying to politely sidle away and the first one to ask. “…Pidge? You OK?”

“No.” She stopped, elbow-deep in a bin full of small wrapped packages labeled in Altaean, voice wobbling between anger and cracking. “I can’t find my phone.” It was an object, a tiny piece of glass and crystal display and metal, and it being missing with backups of half of what she had from home was a catastrophe.

“Oh. I know where that is.” Slav was completely nonchalant about it. 

Her attention zeroed in on Slav. “What?! Where is it?”

“I took it before the battle.” Still offhand, not even looking up from his computer screen. 

Hunk and Coran both went on alert, well aware that they were possibly moments from needing to grab Pidge to keep her from murdering the alien inventor.

“…Why.” Her eyes had narrowed dangerously, the question one that would decide how much of a rescue Slav was about to need. 

“To finish the transmitter, of course.” He turned, winding out of the room suddenly, vanishing out a door - then returned through it, grabbing Keith’s arm with a yank, jarring the Red Paladin out of a tired daze. “You, help carry.” 

He didn’t let go until Keith was following him; it was more than Keith had moved since they’d had to hole up in the shelter. 

They returned shortly after, Keith carrying some kind of large spherical piece of metal; Slav led to the middle of the emergency shelter room, circling a spot and then stopping to stand proudly, motioning for Keith to put it down. 

“I took the liberty of finishing your design with a few augmentations of my own. It will also function as a portable communications relay capable of sending and receiving signals encrypted to resemble universal background noise to any besides the intended recipient - a shrunken, somewhat simplified version of my previous communications relay designs. _And!_ ”, he held up Pidge’s phone triumphantly; Keith set the spherical device down, and it automatically put out an array of legs to hold itself upright, a number of small panels and openings unfolding. “It is capable of opening channels with primitive technologies such as this one.” 

Slav held Pidge’s phone over to a hatch in the orb; a mass of small mechanical feelers emerged, engulfing the phone and pulling it inside. 

There was a light panel on one side of it, the control interface brought up across it. 

“…You finished it?” She knelt down next to the control panel, tapping a few buttons; it gave her a drunken hybrid of an interface that integrated bits of her phone’s home screen, along with a locator. She didn’t really want to check if he’d built it to get around the entries on her contacts list who _didn’t_ have theirs set to be findable; it was enough that there was a small map with the family home on it and the marker for her mother. “…You finished it.” She laid a hand on the machine that hummed quietly. “You really finished it.”

They had the attention of everyone else there; Keith was standing next to it, staring down at it looking a little lost. Coran had woken up from his catnap by the wall, and was now sitting up with a quiet, wistful smile. Allura wandered over to half-kneel next to Pidge, looking at the device. Kolivan had stayed by the wall, keeping quiet.

Lance had squirmed around to sit upright; both he and Hunk were staring at it in tentative awe and disbelief.

When Lance spoke, his voice wavered. “You mean - that thing will let us call home?”

Pidge looked up, catching his gaze with a solemn nod, then swallowed hard and tapped a few buttons. 

There was the incongruous phone-ringing idle noise, waiting for the other end to pick up.

Then a click.

And a groggy, tentative “…Katie?”

“Mom? Mom it’s me. I’m here.” Pidge put a hand on the edge of the screen.

“Katie - oh God you’re alright, where are you? They contacted me when you were thrown out but that was more than two years ago, you never came home-” Her mother was teetering along the verge of tears, or maybe passing it; Pidge took off her glasses and tapped a couple other buttons on the screen, a video panel opening.

“I - I got into the drone footage around Kerberos, there was no sign of a wreck, and I had to find out what happened - I made a fake name and went back, but I didn’t want them tracing anything back to you until I found Dad and Matt…” She was tearing up herself, wiping at her face occasionally. “I - Matt’s okay, he’s out here somewhere, I don’t know where Dad is yet, I’m still looking…”

“Katie…” There was a moment as the video feed came up on the other end with faint sobs; her mother’s face buried into the pillow until she could catch her breath enough to look up, smile a tangled mess of relief and grief. “Where are you? Where’s here? Who…?”

Allura was still sitting next to her, inner pupils glowing pink-violet in the dark, her facial markings faintly luminescent in the dim lighting. 

“Mom, I’m … I’m in space. Far, far away in space. Kerberos didn’t _crash_ , they were _found_ and taken - we… Shiro got away, he’s -” She paused, faltering; Keith looked away at the ground on the other side of the device, behind the video feed. “He was here. We’re not sure where he is right now. Matt got away too, he’s with others, but - all I have is a little bit of enemy security footage right now.” She glanced sideways. “…This is Allura - we’re on her ship. She’s a friend.” 

Allura raised a hand in a cautious wave. “It’s good to meet you..” She glanced to Pidge, the realization that she’d never known Pidge’s real name and had no idea of Earth forms of address sinking in.

“Colleen. Colleen Holt. Allura, this is my mother. Mom, this is Princess Allura of Altaea.” 

“Are you two alright? It’s so dark there…”

Pidge laughed, weak and nervous. “The ship kind of took a beating, so everything’s on low power. We’re hiding out doing repairs right now.” 

“Katie? What have you been doing?” The concern shifted, cautious, a few too many references that Colleen had caught and was trying to put together. 

She shifted uncomfortably, punctuating her words with aimless hand gestures. “Uhm…Well, my team and I kind of … found. This old alien … craft … out in the desert, and … it’s not - good out here. If we hadn’t gotten it away from Earth, they probably would’ve attacked the planet.” 

“Oh god.” Colleen’s expression turned to horrified recognition. “There was an unknown ship - it stayed in orbit long enough to be seen and left chasing something -”

“…Wait, people saw that?”, Lance interjected from the side.

“You and Blue weren’t exactly trying to hide, and that battlecruiser wasn’t stealthed, either”, Keith grumbled. 

Colleen started at the other voices, but they were still out of the visual range of the panel; her attention focused back on Pidge and Allura. “…That really was you?”

Pidge nodded. “Yeah. I could show you the lions, but - I’d have to get someone to help carry this thing through the parts of the ship where gravity’s still turned off to get to the hangar. Or take some time to see if this can let me send photos.”

“…Are you safe?” Colleen’s expression had gone grave, and the question sounded rhetorical in a way that made Pidge’s heart sink into her stomach. 

Pidge’s face fell, and she looked away from the screen. “There … isn’t really such a thing as ‘safe’ in the universe right now.” 

Allura put a hand on Pidge’s shoulder, shifting to sit next to her. “We’re doing everything we can to look out for each other, Mrs. Holt. And - Katie has been invaluable. She’s saved all of us on more than one occasion.” 

Lance leaned into the frame, draping over both of their shoulders from behind. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Holt; I’ve been looking out for her as if she were one of my own family.” 

Colleen looked briefly confused, still visibly trying to process everything; Pidge motioned up at Lance where she could get a hand free. 

“This is Lance. He’s one of my teammates from the Garrison.” She squirmed loose, testing the edges of the panel and if it’d let her move it; the light panel tugged upward, to a position her eye level, and she walked it around the orb. “This is Hunk - he’s the other one I was teamed with after I snuck back in.” 

Hunk waved, smiling. Pidge realized that there was a pair of glowing yellow eyes visible in the background, Kolivan staying at the wall and giving the panel a very uncertain look. 

“Aaand that’s Kolivan in the back - he’s been helping us.” She moved on in a hurry, suspecting that Kolivan wouldn’t want a lot of attention on him. Keith stepped back to give her space, and she had to angle the panel up a little; he found the wall suddenly fascinating, looking away. “This is Keith. I think he’s that antisocial friend of Shiro’s Matt used to talk about kidnapping for the holidays.” 

Coran actually walked over to lean in over Pidge’s shoulder, waving with a cheerful “Hello, Mrs. Holt!” 

Pidge smiled fondly. “This is Coran. He’s been one of my best friends out here, and he’s been teaching me about all of the alien technology on this ship.” 

It seemed like there had been a little bit of overload for Colleen, who returned his wave in a daze.

“Your daughter is brilliant, Mrs. Holt, and I am proud to have her on my ship and on our team.” He smiled, squeezing Pidge’s shoulder. 

And then Slav flowed up into the frame, climbing over Coran’s shoulder, beaming proudly.

Pidge turned the screen to center on him. “ - And this is Slav. He’s the one who finished the device so we could call home, and he’s helped with a lot of other things; we wouldn’t be here without him.” 

He was obnoxious, definitely off-kilter broken by the Galra, but he’d earned some kind of spotlight, and getting to talk to her mother again was more than worth all of the irritation. 

“You helped my Katie call home?” Somewhere in all of the flood of everything, Colleen had decided what was important, and far more important than having no idea what Slav even was. 

“It was not an entirely complicated procedure, I have designed and helped build similar encrypted communication relays for many years - the challenge was more in making the device small enough to be easily portable, and in taking time to make sense of your primitive communications technology and how to make it interface with our far superior transmissions ability.” Slav was close to preening. 

“Thank you. …Thank you.” Colleen stopped to wipe her eyes, crying again, quieter than before. 

Slav glanced down, the ego-beaming softening. “I have spent so much time on fate-of-the-universe projects - it was good to have something smaller to do, and I am glad to have been able to make some repayment to the Paladins for putting themselves at risk for us all.” 

“Thank you. I couldn’t thank you enough.” It was quiet for a moment, Slav still basking in his moment of validation.

Then something sank in for Colleen, past the relief. “…Katie? Did he just call you a ‘Paladin’?” 

Pidge flinched, caught out.

“What have you been doing out there? Exactly?” It was almost visible that she’d put together that ‘Paladin’ was not a title associated with doing technical background work, alongside all of the other mention of threats and conflict.

She settled the screen somewhere that it had a good view of a lot of the bay; Allura wandered back over to stand next to her.

“Uh, well. You see.” Pidge rubbed the back of her head. “There’s this empire that’s spread out tormenting people, and we … kind of … well, those weird mechanical lions are pretty much the only thing that can threaten him anymore. So we’re, uhm. Fighting. We’ve already broken a few planets free and we’re pretty sure we finally got rid of the Emperor? If we’re lucky I might be able to come home soon now that he’s gone.”

She did not want to tell her mother she was front-lines special forces in an intergalactic war, and really, really hoped Zarkon being dead meant it’d be over, although Colleen was raising an eyebrow, and Pidge had the funny feeling her mother wasn’t buying her attempt at playing it off; it was like a sudden and more dire replay of trying to talk her way around blowing up the chemistry lab at school. 

“You know his regional commanders aren’t going to just give up that easily”, Kolivan rumbled from his place by the wall. “That’s why we’re _hiding_ until the Castle is repaired and the Black Lion comes back online.”

Allura opened her mouth, pondering saying something about tact, but it wasn’t really the best time for an argument.

And he was right. She closed her mouth, and rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly before returning her attention to the transmission. “He’s likely right, Mrs. Holt - it may be some time yet before we can safely even visit Earth without making targets of you or the families of the others. I wish that I could tell you that Katie will be safe from harm, but I cannot.” She rested a hand on Pidge’s shoulder. “I can tell you Katie and the others are, currently, one of the greatest forces in existence - they may not be safe, but they have more ability to defend themselves and others than anyone else, and we’re doing everything we can to support them.”

Colleen nodded slowly, concern still written across her face. “Thank you for taking care of Katie.” There was an uncertain pause as she looked away from the camera. “…Would it draw attention here if you took me with you?”

Allura paused, thinking long on it.

“To Earth, very likely”, Kolivan commented, finally standing to walk over; he didn’t bother with trying to stand in frame near Pidge, hanging a little behind and still half out of the frame, as a panel at her eye level barely caught his waist. “And I do not think this ship can afford to have civilian personnel on board right now. You would need to be prepared to contribute in emergencies, and defend yourself if we were boarded.” 

Colleen’s face fell. 

“Mom? I’ll keep in touch as much as I can - and hopefully soon I’ll have Matt and Dad in the call, too.” She had a lead on Matt, and she wasn’t going to let herself consider that her father might be dead. 

Lance leaned into frame again. “Hey, is it okay if I give your number to my family? You know, so it’s not so lonely there.” 

“Ah - …yes. It’s fine. …Thank you.” Colleen was distracted, thoughtful, and also showing signs of the hour they’d called and the shock catching up. 

“I’ll call back in a few hours and tell you everything, okay? I should let everyone else have a chance to call home.” She almost added ‘and let you get back to sleep’ but she wasn’t sure how much sleep her mother would be getting.

Colleen nodded, curled around one of the pillows on the bed.

“Mom? I love you. I’ll see you as soon as I can, and I’ll bring everyone home.” 

“Katie - I love you too. Be careful.” 

Pidge ended the call, slumping into Allura in a worn-down hug; Allura put an arm around her, and she buried her face in Allura’s side with a stifled sob. Allura gently herded her over to one of the long cushioned benches by a wall. Lance sat down on the other side of her, with a hand on her shoulder while she cried with her face buried into Allura; Allura rubbed her back, hugging her with occasional quiet murmurs, distantly sad herself and pausing to wipe away her own tears.

“I thought I might never see her again…”, Pidge finally managed. 

“I know. It’s alright. We’ll do everything we can to keep her safe.” 

Pidge finally sat up, wiping her face on the edge of her coat and fumbling for a spare scrap of cloth to blow her nose on, Lance and Allura on either side. Slav scurried closer to hand her back her phone, retrieved from the device; she accepted it with a nod.

She wasn’t even sure where to start when she did call her mother back; she’d been working on the device fully intending for it to work, eventually, but getting something that wouldn’t risk drawing Galra attention had turned it into a nebulous “someday” that she’d completely shelved in the aftermath of the fight against Zarkon, Shiro’s disappearance, and the Paladins recovering from the Komar. 

For now, though, she wasn’t the only one with a family, and she did know who else had been hit the hardest by the isolation. “Lance? Do you have your phone on you?” 

Lance nodded, suddenly looking lost and almost intimidated. He turned around to look over at Hunk. Hunk gestured between him and the device.

Lance fumbled his phone out of his pocket, and walked over to stand next to the device, staring down at it for a few minutes. Slav wound over, coiling next to him to sit up and wait expectantly. 

Lance finally took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and held his phone to the slot, letting the machine’s swarm of feelers take it. He keyed in to call and waited.

It took a few minutes of ringing; his mother was in a time zone a few hours later than the Holts. When the phone picked up, there was an audible shuffling of blankets and bedding, fumbling with the phone. 

“Mama? It’s me. I’m okay.”

“ _Madre dios_ \- is this real? You’re not dead?” Her voice was hushed, wavering. 

“No, Mama. I’m not dead. Hunk and Pidge are here too, we’re all okay.” There was a smile spreading across Lance’s face.

Pidge realized that for the most part, she wasn’t even sure what language was being spoken; the lions seemed to give them ability to understand _aliens_ , after all. 

Hunk leaned over Lance’s shoulder with a grin. “It’s good to hear you again, Mama Espinosa!”

There was a burst of muffled, wobbly-sounding rapid Spanish that wasn’t audible enough for more than a vague occasional tug at a concept to Pidge, then faint, groggy mumbling from another voice; “Wake up, it’s Lance, he’s okay” could be caught out of it before there was the beep of the phone going on speaker. “Lance, turn on your camera, let us see you!”

Lance tapped a couple buttons on the panel as the video came on the other end, his mother in a nightshirt in bed, father leaning over her shoulder blearily. Lance waved, a gesture Hunk echoed.

“You really are - where are you?! They told us there was an accident, that you were _dead_ …”. The angle shifted; she was cradling the phone angled upwards, tears starting to run down her face, and his father seemed to be suddenly much more awake, arm around her shoulder to hug her closer.

“That figures.” After ‘Pilot error’, he should’ve known the Garrison wouldn’t want to say anything about what had happened. “We found something - something amazing, I need to show you guys Blue when the Castle’s in better shape and we can lug this thing out there - we’re in _space_ , in some other galaxy on an alien ship, and we’ve been all over the place.” Slav shifted to be standing more straight, peering into the frame from below; Lance’s parents both visibly startled as there were three hands waving from the side. 

“Hello, Lance’s parents!” Slav dropped out of frame for a moment to climb up and over Hunk so that he could hang into the frame more easily. “I am Slav, the genius engineer who completed Pidge’s basic design for this communication device. Your son is now one of the Paladins of Voltron and responsible for pulling the fate of the universe from the jaws of horrible tyranny, genocide, and slavery. Thanks to them, all of our odds of survival and evading horrifying torture and violent bloody death have risen from impossible to minuscule!”

Lance had been smiling proudly when Slav started. The smile flagged and turned into attempts at shoving Slav out of frame or putting a hand over his mouth, attempts Slav evaded with impressive agility, keeping the same cheerful tone throughout. Hunk just stayed still in the middle of it, his smile turning nervous. 

Both of Lance’s parents were looking between Slav and Lance, expressions confused and horrified. Lance stopped in his attempts at removing Slav from the camera’s view to motion at him as if showing something off on display. “See? Aliens!”

Slav made a coughing noise, curling around Hunk’s shoulders like a many armed scarf as Lance gave up on chasing him off. “Please, I am Bytor and this ship is Altaean. It was also the pinnacle of engineering and technology… ten thousand years ago, making many of its systems now laughably archaic - I could do far better at this point in time.” 

Allura rolled her eyes in the background.

“Also there’s kind of a war going on,” Hunk added.

The other end of the call was dead silent, both of them staring at the screen blankly with expressions of vague horror. 

“A war?”, his father finally managed, raising an eyebrow at Lance. 

“Yeah that’s… why we’re calling instead of coming home.” Lance’s brief routine of bravado faded, his hands in his coat pockets as he looked away. “The thing we’re calling on is encrypting and hiding everything so it can’t be tracked to you guys - because they probably would try to grab you to get to us.” Lance rubbed the back of his head, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Are you alright?” His mother's question was gentle.

For a moment, he brightened, almost managing normal animated chatter. “Yeah, I’m-”. His voice faltered, and his smile cracked; Slav looked down, eyes narrowing in thought, then flowed off Hunk’s shoulder and away from the device to coil over by the wall near Kolivan. “…not really. I miss home, I miss you, I miss everyone. We’ve done a lot, but-”. He glanced back at the room self-consciously, straightening his posture and ready to try to play it off. “Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing out here.”

He stared at the ground; a couple beats later with no comments from anyone else in the room, and he leaned boneless against Hunk, who put a hand around his shoulder to steady him. 

“Hijo…” His mother reached up, as if she could reach through the camera to him. “You know we’d have you back in a heartbeat, and if there is _anything_ we can do to help…”

“Yeah. I know. I don’t know what there would even be right now - you can’t really send care packages off-planet, and even if you could, we don’t even know what galaxy we’ll be in one day to the next.” He didn’t even manage to put much into the weak attempt at a joke.

“We’re still here for you, and we’re proud of you. Hell, if your alien friend meant any of that, then you’ve been doing something amazing.” His father was careful, taking time with it.

Lance half-nodded, not entirely accepting it, with a very vague hand gesture at the room around him, suddenly not wanting to keep talking out loud and very aware he was in front of everyone. 

“You’re not any more of a mess than the rest of us.”

Lance stiffened suddenly, twisting around to stare wide-eyed at the dark corner by the door; somewhere in everyone’s attention being elsewhere, Keith had sat down mostly between two of the storage crates, and he’d barely been audible.

“You’re fine. You’re better at tactics than I am.” 

Lance wasn’t sure how to react; Keith seemed to actually mean it, and Keith telling him he was good at something after all of their fights meant something entirely different from hearing it from Shiro where it was almost expected.

It was also more at one time than Keith had said since they’d returned, and Keith sounded too tired for someone who’d been sleeping at least as much as anyone else and weirdly hollow, with no actual energy to it. 

There were worried glances on both sides of the screen, although when he looked back, his parents had apparently accepted that whoever spoke up was well out of line of sight of the screen’s image frame. 

“You should listen to your friends, hijo.” There were a couple layers to the way his mother turned her attention back to him - for his sake on what they’d said, and for their sake when he’d been told to look out for others. 

Lance frowned, narrowing his eyes Keith’s direction. “Yeah.” He shook his head, trying to clear it, finding his composure again. “…You know - we’re going to be here for a few days - can you get everyone for a call in the daytime?”

“Of course!”

“Alright. Then I’ll tell everybody everything when it’s not the middle of the night there.” He paused. “Oh, and -” He looked back over his shoulder, ducking off to Pidge; Pidge stared up at him for a moment, started as she realized what he was after, and fumbled with her phone before handing it to him. He darted back, holding the screen up to the light panel, not wanting to try and fumble with the half-Altaean, half-god-only-knew-what interface to figure out how to get it to send a text. “Can you guys look after her for us?” 

There was a beat as both of his parents leaned in, squinting at the screen, and a more focused stare at the last name. “Yeah it’s - same Holt family as the Kerberos mission, long story, they were abducted by aliens, and the only other member of the family is behind me and came with us, she’s been alone and could use somebody looking after her until we can bring back her family, and Pidge - er, Katie, her daughter, Pidge was an alias - is family now, which means _she’s_ family too. I asked Colleen if I could give you her number.” 

His mother was fumbling with his father’s phone, entering in the name, number, and address info; his father rubbed his chin at the address. “I think Gwen’s in that area. We’ll have to call her, too.” 

“Thanks. I’ll call you back when it’s a sane hour, okay? I love you.” 

“It’s good to hear from you. Take care of yourself?”

Lance gave a weak smile. “I will.”

After the call ended, Lance leaned on Hunk, staring at the machine in silence for a few long minutes. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see or hear them again,” he said quietly, before self consciousness caught up again, and he looked around the shelter room, uncomfortably aware of everyone else in the hold. 

Hunk rested a hand on his shoulder. Keith hadn’t moved from the corner he’d curled up in, and Lance wasn’t sure he was even paying attention anymore. Pidge had edged over closer, standing on the other side of him. Kolivan was either dozing or pretending to be asleep, he wasn’t sure which. Slav was half-curled where he’d settled for most of the call, quiet for once and watching. 

Coran had sidled in next to Pidge, nearby while shifting like he was trying not to crowd. Allura was on the bench where Lance had to turn more to see her, curled up with her face resting half-hidden in folded arms. She looked distant, but he caught a faint, whispered conversation with the mice.

One of them looked up, and jumped off the bench to run over, climbing up his leg and jacket to nestle in on his shoulder, a small ball of warm fur against his neck. 

Lance lifted a hand absently to gently pet Chulatt’s head with one finger. “Thanks buddy.” 

After another minute of quiet whispering, there was a slightly more audible “I suppose you’re right…” from Allura, Platt nudging her wrist with his head. She sat up, hands folded in her lap, shoulders low; Plachu was still rambling something at her, and while she listened, she was making occasional surreptitious glances around the room - at the clump of people where Lance’s distracted attention was on Chulatt, at Keith’s boots barely visible sticking out from the other side of the storage crates he’d hidden himself among, and Kolivan quiet by the other wall, then back to the group with most of the Paladins and Coran. 

Lance and the others startled when she spoke, even if it was quiet, slow and halting and hard to get out. 

“When I was a child…” She almost looked up, then looked back down, eyes distant on the floor. “I would hear stories of what the Paladins had been doing often before Father could call home, and always well before I saw any of them.” 

She did finally look up sideways, to find Lance blinking widely, not moving; Hunk was standing still, the kind of freeze that went along with trying not to startle skittish wildlife, while Pidge was next to Coran, giving her a weak smile. Coran’s faint, bittersweet smile was barely visible.

She closed her eyes for a moment; Platt nudged her wrist. Right from the beginning Shiro had always been fast to catch fraying edges, to tug at anyone who faltered with encouragement. It wasn’t something she’d been as good at - it was easy to forget and hard to focus on with Zarkon’s looming shadow hanging over them, the enormity of everything they were up against and everything they still had to do. Gentle encouragement was hard when she was one good session of thinking too hard away from panic herself. 

Zarkon was gone, everything was still a mess, they were all a mess. They needed Shiro’s habit of calmly nudging in confidence that they _could_ win and keep going, but he wasn’t here to do it, which meant Platt was right that someone had to do it. 

“The stories always sounded so amazing - like something out of storybooks and legends where there was never any question things would work out somehow.” She was running the trim of her skirt through her fingers, retracing the same few inches over and over. “Then when they’d actually be back, and it was just them, my mother, Coran, and I… well.” Her fidget paused, hands going still. “I’d always want to hear from them what happened, but if anyone tried to embellish or leave out the less heroic parts, someone would chime in with reminders of what was unplanned luck, how fast their plans unraveled into improvisation, or how much panic had been going on - one in particular seemed to take special glee in bringing the stories back down to something more mortal.” She turned her head enough to give Pidge a short, wistful look and a wry smile. 

Allura paused, finally letting the trim of her dress go, folding her hands back in her lap. “All of them together didn’t sound that different from all of you, most days.” She shifted, straightening a little, self-consciousness shifting towards something more like her usual demeanor. “I suppose the point is - you’ve all done well at living up to what they were at their best - and I know they didn’t always feel like they knew what they were doing as much as everyone believed, either.” 

While it had been addressed to the room, after a few beats, her attention settled on Lance, who almost tried to take a half-step back, a movement Hunk stopped simply be keeping his hand unyielding on Lance’s shoulder. Allura caught the near dodge, focusing on him more pointedly, and he shifted weight between his feet nervously.

“When we were separated after that first fight with Zarkon, you _all_ gave a good measure of what kind of Paladins you were left to your own devices.” 

She hoped Lance didn’t need her to spell out how he’d been the one who did the greater part of saving a civilization, on his own direction, while separated.

Lance, for his part, was thrown off guard, blinking back in confusion. There’d been an accepted pattern to interactions with the Princess, one this was well outside of, and he was stressed, tired, and had been through enough of a wringer - even if part of it was good news - that it was taking even longer to process.

He actually looked sideways to Hunk, who just grinned at him.

“I-” Chulatt headbutted his neck.

The Princess had just not only compared them to their predecessors - save Zarkon implied, he hoped - but made the comparison favorably and said he’d (all of them, but she’d definitely been angling at him at the end there) done well at the whole thing. 

Princess Allura of Planet Altea who thought things like aiming the Castle’s defenses at them was a ‘good motivational exercise’, who routinely scoffed at the need for sleep and rest, who treated the very idea of limits of mortal beings as a frustrating inconvenience, and was no less hard on herself than anyone else, had actually said he’d done well in the context of her father and his team. 

“Th…thanks Princess.” 

He wasn’t really aware that he’d lapsed into an almost stupid grin himself, still dazed; the entire ‘day’ was starting to feel unreal, like he’d wake up from the dream any minute.

Hunk patted his shoulder and gave him a push toward the pile of scavenged blankets and pillows where he’d been nesting. He walked over to sit down with a loose flop, leaning against the wall and staring at the ceiling.

He’d gotten to talk to his family, could still talk to them, and Allura had actually said something _massively_ positive about him.

Pidge and Hunk let him go; Allura blinked, uncertain what to make of his response, but when she looked back at the others, Coran was beaming proudly and Hunk was giving her a thumbs up. The other three mice had piled into her lap, settling themselves on top of and next to her hands; she gave them all a tired, nervous smile.

Pidge’s attention shifted to Hunk; she knew he had his phone and while he wasn’t as vocal about it as either her or Lance, he had his own homesickness and had admitted to missing his family in quieter times when it was just the three of them. Hunk’s family wasn’t the noisy flock of birds Lance’s was, and the relationship as she’d caught it back in the Garrison had been a quieter kind of comfortable security, with calls spaced out a little longer and everyone just seeming content in the awareness the others would be okay and happy to hear from them when they had time. 

He didn’t really seem to need much to follow the idea, and suddenly seemed aware again of the device in the room; he fumbled his phone out, fidgeting with it, then gave the machine an uncertain look, almost edging back. 

“This is really okay? I mean the way time zones work it’ll be morning, but what am I supposed to say? We’ve been gone for like, a year…”

She cuffed Hunk’s arm, shooting him a sharp look. “Just go call them. They miss you too.”

He swallowed hard, sliding his phone into the machine, and closed his eyes, holding still after tapping in the commands to make the call.

It didn’t ring long before it picked up, a cheerful chorus from a couple directions of “Hunk!” and “Hunk, you’re okay!”; it sounded less shocked than any of the other calls had been.

“Lance’s parents just texted us that they’d heard from all of you - we almost couldn’t believe it at first, but here you are!” The video screen came up a second later, his father’s arm still out of frame settling the phone where it would rest on a counter or shelf somewhere. Morning sun came in windows that were open to let a breeze in through the curtains, thick greenery and flowers curled around the window outside. 

His mother hurried into frame, leaning over his father’s shoulder, dishes half-set-out and abandoned; barely a couple seconds later, his grandmother wedged in on the side, adjusting the phone to better keep the frame around all of them.

Hunk turned on the camera on their end, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah uh - sorry I didn’t call sooner or anything, we didn’t know we were going to get abducted by a giant alien cat robot.” 

His grandmother made a dismissive noise. “Don’t apologize, we’re all just glad to hear you’re okay.”

His mother held up her phone, a string of text across the screen, some of it in large blocks. “They told us some of it; we all know where Lance gets it from.”

Hunk laughed. “Yeah, especially when it’s something big like this.” He fidgeted, shuffling feet, and looked away. “… I guess you heard why we can’t come home, then?”

“They said you were off being heroes, and that they were worried but proud of you all.” 

He laughed again, this time distinctly nervous and a little broken sounding. “Yeah. Heroes. Don’t get me wrong, what we’re doing is really important and there’s been a lot of good, but I’m also spending half my time scared out of my wits. I mean, we had that giant battlecruiser that showed up in orbit for a few minutes over Earth chasing us down and trying to kill us within a couple days of leaving, and after what we were just up against it actually kinda feels small and cute now.” 

"That means you're getting better at it," his grandmother offered, calm over a steady iron focus. 

"Well - I guess? I mean it's partly the lions, and yeah, that's apparently dependent on how well we're doing with them, but -" Hunk made a few helpless hand gestures. "Every time there's so much that could go wrong that it's hard _not_ to think about, you know? We're getting shot at and there's been at least three times one of us has almost died, not counting all the close calls where we got away okay." He paused again. "...Or the giant robot the lions join up for getting hit in the face with a planetkiller. I think that counts as a 'almost died' for all of us." 

"Take a minute to breathe." His father had a hand up, a slow calming gesture. 

Hunk nodded, and did take a minute, although he was still fidgeting. "I just worry that we're not going to make it back one of these times, you know?"

His grandmother nodded. "Well, you're dealing with more than any of us would've imagined; that seems natural enough." She leaned into the camera a little more, resting a hand on his mother's shoulder, calm and thoughtfully focused. "Why don't you tell us more about what you've been doing? You're all here after everything so you must've accomplished quite a bit." 

He took a deep breath. "Well... uh. We got the battlecruiser away from a planet full of people who were just little villages, the village got pretty badly damaged but they all lived and were rebuilding when we left; I dunno if that counts since the Galra were only there because of us." He frowned. "But right after that there's ... there's these creatures that live out here that're huge and just live in space, some of them the size of planets - they're _really_ amazing, there's entire civilizations that live on them and can talk to them. We saved one of them and everyone living there from the Galra strip-mining them for these crystals that power ships; the poor thing was almost dead from it." 

His mother smiled, and his grandmother nodded, as if it was good news that was exactly what she would’ve expected. 

And Lance leaned into frame on his shoulder behind him, grinning. "He's leaving out the part where he found a girlfriend." 

"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!" Hunk jumped, sidestepping so that Lance had to catch his balance again, staring at Lance.

Lance was completely undeterred, and moved from straightening to happily chattering away. "Her name's Shay! She's a rock, but she's really sweet and good-looking too, you guys would lov-"

He was cut off by Hunk reaching over to pull the hood, and part of the back of his jacket, over his face, holding it tight in front to muffle him; Lance was still trying to talk through it, even with Hunk talking over him. "Shayisnotmygirlfriend, she's a really good friend I admire a great deal who's really pretty and who really helped me figure things out!" 

Pidge leaned from the other side; Hunk was focused enough on his teammates to have not noticed yet the quiet laughter from the other end of the call. "You're flustering pretty bad for just a good friend."

Hunk let go of Lance to pick Pidge up by the shoulders, a mutter meant for her that was still just barely audible to everyone else. "So help me I will lock you in one of the storage crates until the call is over-"

While he was preoccupied, Lance only paused to straighten his coat, otherwise picking up as if nothing had happened. "When things quiet down some and we can go back by Earth, we'll see if we can bring her to visit! Or you know, bring you guys to the Balmera, that'd be neat too. They’ll probably have things rebuilt pretty well by then!" 

Hunk let go of Pidge, turning around to make helpless, frustrated hand gestures at Lance with a strangled noise, before giving up and returning his attention to the screen. "Okay so I'd love to bring you guys out here to show you space and some of the places we've been, but 'when things quiet down' might be a long time since it’ll be when we can do it without leading an invasion to Earth or anything?"

The now-stifled laughter was fond, at least, and his mother was the first to get to "We would love that" out of it. 

Hunk sighed, resigned. "ANYWAY..."

He continued on, going through much of what'd happened, although there was another wobble of panic and his narration shifting when it came to breaking into the command center to get to Allura while everyone else was fighting outside; 

"And Shiro was somewhere in there in trouble, Keith was practically getting killed outside by Zarkon, and I think the entire command center was trying to come down on me and the Princess; I was pretty sure we were all gonna die-"

Allura had wandered closer while he was talking, and finally stepped into frame to stand next to him. "And you almost wouldn't have known it, the way he took on everything that they sent after us more than well enough to cover for me being unarmed." She put a hand on his shoulder. 

Hunk stopped, mouth open. His grandmother nodded. "I keep telling you, you don't give yourself enough credit. Your idea of 'just doing the bare minimum' is everyone else's 'spectacularly above and beyond'." 

He closed his mouth, nodding quietly. 

"I think that's a common problem for all of the Paladins, not just Hunk," Allura commented drily. 

"Pot calling the kettle black, Princess," Hunk grumbled. She looked away for a moment with a faint shrug, not actually addressing it directly. 

"Hunk has also been regularly trying to look out for everyone, cooking whenever we have access to fresh food, and helping Coran and Pidge with repairs and maintenance on the Castle and everything else."

He shrank a little, fussing at the hem of his vest at the Princess's additions. 

"That sounds like our boy," his father commented proudly. 

"He's good at it. You're lucky to have him," his grandmother added. 

"We are," Allura agreed easily.

There was gentle prompting to keep going, questions here and there, until there was notice that Hunk was getting tired and others were settling down in the background; he denied being tired until he was called on starting to lose track of sentences, and finally gave up, spending a few minutes rambling about how much he missed home and everyone with bits of fussing in return, adding a good ten to twenty minutes onto the call after 'we should let you go sleep, we'll be here' was said. 

There was silence for a few minutes after the call finally closed. 

“Hey, Keith-” Hunk turned, starting out cheerful and flagging in the middle of turning as he realized he was probably making a mistake. He’d taken the half-step to get to where he could see the corner Keith had wedged into, and Keith hadn’t moved. Keith stared up from where he was sitting, with an expression that was trying very hard to be a glare but didn’t have enough weight to it for more than vaguely offended and definitely hurt. 

“Uh. Did you want to call anyone or check on anything?” Hunk motioned back at the device, not quite ready to let go of the offer as something meant to be helping. It’d come out during the time they’d been in space that he didn’t have family back home, and pieces were slowly fitting together with Hunk that while Keith had good scores on team simulations, he was otherwise practically a cryptid to the rest of the students, prone to vanishing on any downtime and infamous for being hard to pin down into conversations. Still, Hunk held to some vain hope that Keith had _someone_ ; after all, he had to’ve at least had assigned roommates and teammates, even though that was no guarantee he’d gotten along with them.

“Call who.” Keith shifted, leaning back against the wall and sliding down it more. “I only had one person back on Earth, and he’s gone again.” 

Hunk took a half-step back, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean-” He wasn’t sure where he was going with that. “I mean, I thought just in case you had some friend or old teammate or something-”

And after it came out Hunk remembered how, while Keith’s two intended teammates had been assholes towards him and Lance outside of class, Keith had never actually been there with them, and even they didn’t seem to have a clue where he was most of the time. 

They were still pains in the ass after he’d washed out, but now that Hunk thought about it, they also seemed like they’d taken Keith getting thrown out personally. 

Keith had gone from glaring at him to back against the wall trying badly to fake sleep; there was something kicked-puppy in the miserable tension where it was obvious Keith was trying to bury any reaction, and that made Hunk feel worse than if Keith had lost his temper. 

No family, no friends, the one person he’d been close with before Voltron had just disappeared again, and he’d just been spending time listening to everyone else’s long-distance reunions. 

“Uh. Sorry about that.” Hunk shifted awkwardly, glancing back; with the lack of ability to go anywhere else, they had drawn the attention of at least half the room, but nobody was moving to interrupt. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” It was terse and clipped, and Keith pulled his boot in out of sight, having noticed the way Hunk looked away and correctly guessed that he was failing at ‘not drawing attention to himself’. He was looking away, at the shipping crates, pointedly not up at Hunk.

Hunk stared at him narrowly for a few minutes. “…Right. I’m gonna call bullshit on that.” 

Keith hunched his shoulders, folding his arms.

Hunk looked around the room, and then sighed, settling down cross-legged in front of the opening between the two storage crates, blocking off the area as best he could without moving to try and get into the small space. He wasn’t really sure what to do, but he had the guess that someone else coming up behind him would only set Keith on edge further. If he were perfectly honest, all that was keeping him from trying to pick up the other paladin to carry him off and try to burrito-wrap him in blankets for a while was being pretty sure Keith would react to it with all the squirming and angry flailing of a stray cat that didn’t want to be picked up. 

“It’s not that bad. Really.” Keith’s reaction had been to straighten and make some attempt at a more normal sitting posture for him, which might have worked if there hadn’t been the entire context and wasn’t wedged into a small, out of sight space. 

Hunk had to take a long, deep breath and pinch the bridge of his nose. “Right. You just always scrunch up into tiny spaces and go flat on everyone.”

There was a grumbled huff from the back of the space between the crates.

“Look, Keith. Nobody blames you for being upset or expects you to be okay with everything, but the whole wedging into a corner thing is starting to get kind of worrying, yanno?” Hunk gestured at the space Keith had spent the last few hours in, and was trying not to tally how much of the time they’d been on low-power he’d spent finding odd corners to avoid people in a situation where there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. “Nobody’s going to eat you or anything, and…” Hunk inhaled, straightening. “We’re all worried about Shiro. He did a lot for all of us, and he’s been a good friend, and … whatever happened, we’re all going to figure it out together, okay? You don’t have to keep up the whole cool loner act.” 

Keith had stiffened, freezing, then part of the tension drained out; he still wasn’t looking at Hunk, but it was less of an attempt at stoneface, distant and lost; he was almost hard to hear. “I just - I needed time to try and … process or something. I can’t do anything I’d usually do to clear my head until the Castle’s in better shape. I’m not going to spend all the time like this, alright?” 

Hunk nodded, using one of the crates to lever back standing. Most of the room was still watching intently, and one of the mice skittered back from watching over the edge of the crate to head back to Allura. 

Coran had moved on to tidying part of the room they were in, and Slav was working on something on a portable computer’s light screen, but Pidge and Lance were both watching Hunk expectantly. Hunk walked over to sit next to Lance in the nest of pillows and blankets.

“Needed some space to get his head together, bad at people, that whole what are feelings thing.” He stretched and yawned. The people on Earth needed some sleep before there were more calls made, and they all needed rest, themselves.


	2. It's a Sacred Ship But Step By Step I'm Gonna Save It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some rest and time to adjust to the realization they can call home - and giving some time for things on Earth to not be an awful hour of night for most of the families - the return calls to take time and tell stories happen, and Kolivan gets pulled into trying to help look after a team that's still figuring themselves out. 
> 
> And Keith is Keith.

There were a few quiet hours spent in and out of sleep. Kolivan was quietly accepting Slav deciding he was the best place in the room to sleep, draped over his shoulders while he was half propped up against the wall. Coran tried to protest being fine on the floor with blankets, but after a short argument Allura picked him up and deposited him on the padded bench, curling up on the floor herself with some of the pillows and blankets. Lance was asleep half draped over Hunk, Pidge curled up with her own small pile of blankets and a couple pillows nearby. Keith hadn’t left his corner between the crates.

What passed for morning was as awkward and stiff as it’d been since they’d been sequestered in the storage bay/emergency shelter. Pidge was awake and fidgeting with her computer, nosing around bits of code until it was a better time on Earth and more people were awake on the Castle. 

It was a slow process, rife with incidents where Pidge was pretty sure some people woke up before they actually started moving, but were trying to avoid waking others. There was a point where the only other person that’d let on to being awake was Kolivan, who was quietly reading on a screen, but hadn’t moved or made any motion to move Slav, who was still asleep, draped over his shoulders. 

Allura may not have bothered, but she was cautiously quiet when she wandered to where there was a crate of some kind of long-term rations. The packaged emergency food bars hadn’t been much of a break from the goo; apparently MRE’s were MRE’s, no matter who made them or how advanced the technology. 

Pidge had been edging closer to the device as people started moving, and Lance joined her well before Hunk showed any sign of waking up; eventually, there were at least vague signs of life from the rest of the room, and Coran had announced that he was going to see about restoring power and left without even trying to recruit anyone else. 

There was a brief awkward moment at the device, then Lance stepped back.

This time when the video came up, there was sunlight coming through the window, the phone set on a counter; Colleen was stepping back from propping it up with a sigh of relief, although she looked like she’d barely slept. There was a cup of coffee on the kitchen table not far behind her.

“Morning, mom.” 

“I was almost afraid I’d dreamed it last night.” 

Pidge smiled, sitting down cross-legged in front of it and pulling the light screen down to fit. “After everything that’s happened, it’s almost hard to believe we have this here, too.” 

Colleen gave a wry smile, and a nod to Lance. “I had a good reminder when Teresa called first thing in the morning. I only just got off the phone with them, and one of the girls is dropping by today.”

“Yeah, they kind of descend like locusts.” Hunk leaned down into frame grinning. “I think I came close to getting kidnapped a few times.” He patted Pidge’s shoulder, then continued on toward the storage crate where the food and other supplies were. 

Colleen tracked him leaving frame with an eyebrow raised but no argument. “They already did ask if I had people in the area, and I have an open invitation to visit; I think I might take them up on it here soon.” 

“I’m glad you’re not alone out there.” Pidge looked away, fidgeting with the bottom of her jacket. “…I’m - sorry for not calling more when I went back into the Garrison. I didn’t want you to get in trouble if I got caught again, since what I was doing was kind of illegal, but - I wasn’t really thinking about anything except finding answers. Or anyone, really.” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and steeling herself to continue. 

“I’m lucky Lance and Hunk put up with me trying to ignore them the way they did and looked out for me. I didn’t realize how lousy I was being to everyone else until after Lance almost died, and they kept me from getting in worse trouble a lot of times.” She had another pause; Lance was having his own awkward moment out of the camera’s view. “And… I dunno, I think I got too paranoid - I don’t think the Garrison was looking close enough at ‘Pidge Gunderson’ to question anything until after we broke Shiro out and left, and if they didn’t question you at all, they probably didn’t figure it out.” 

“Katie…” Colleen sighed, settling in her chair and picking up her coffee. “I… it was awful - I got your last message where you said you’d be back in contact once you found out what happened, but I was worried about you all that time, and it was … too quiet here, even with people from the clinic and some of Sam’s friends coming by. I was taking home patients that needed closer watch just to have something to do, and doing foster rescues - the house has been a zoo half the time, Gunter hasn’t known what to do with himself.” She chuckled quietly, shaking her head. “Right now I’m just glad to hear from you and know that you’re doing well, even if you have given me fifty more things to worry about.” 

“I’ll try not to go so long without checking in. I mean, I haven’t been _able_ to, but we can now, and I can’t really promise much because things get pretty insane here but there’s enough times when the Castle’s under repair and I’m sure Coran would let me duck out from helping fix things to call home.” She rocked back where she was sitting, hands on her ankles. “There’s a lot to catch up on.”

Colleen nodded, now considering something. “There is. You - broke Shiro out before you left?” 

Katie made a small awkward noise before she started in, punctuating occasionally with hand gestures more than breaths taken. “Uh. Well, this Galra spy named Ulaz broke him out of where they were holding him and sent him back to Earth to warn us that they were coming, and I didn’t know what was going on, just that there was some kind of object entering system and their radio chatter had been getting a lot more active?” She was only barely pausing to breathe, and Colleen smiled and shook her head, settling in to listen.

“So Lance and Hunk followed me out to check it out, but the Garrison surrounded the whole place and was treating him like some kind of unknown threat, and Lance and I were trying to figure out how to get in to help him without getting caught ourselves when a bunch of explosions went off that Keith must’ve set to make a distraction so _he_ could do the same thing, and we ran into him where they had Shiro in restraints and all ended up taking his bike to get away which was kind of terrifying and I’m still not sure why _I_ got stuck hanging onto Shiro for all of that,” There was only a brief pause in all of the animated hand gestures and chatter as she glared at the others, Hunk in particular, continuing on without even taking a breath. 

“But it was less crazy once we lost the Garrison people chasing us and Keith got us all out to the shack he’s been living in out in the middle of the desert where he’d been trying to track down the Blue Lion, only that didn’t work because Blue didn’t want him, so nothing happened until we all went out there and Blue woke up for Lance,” she still hadn’t taken a breath as she motioned to Lance.

“Which was probably just in time because if Sendak was coming to Earth anyway to take it then if we’d been like, a few hours longer he probably would’ve brought the Battlecruiser down and been digging and we would’ve been dealing with an alien invasion scenario and as funny as it’d be to watch Iverson try to explain to the world what was going on when they had clues about it they weren’t sharing with anybody for years, I’m really glad we apparently headed off the Galra invading Earth because Sendak was there for Blue so when Blue hijacked us to go find Allura, he turned around to chase us.” 

There were a couple quiet beats; Colleen was listening, and used to processing rambles like that, but there were times there was more to process packed into it than others, and she had a mental list of things that would probably need more explanation later. “Did you manage to lose them?” 

“Kind of. For a few days. Long enough to wake Allura up and find the other lions - mostly. We had to get one of them off his ship and rescued some prisoners who told me a little about what’d happened to Dad and Matt, then we brought down the ship.” She inhaled, already hearing the other question that had been looming coming enough that didn’t need to be said. 

“It’s - mostly not good. Dad’s in a work camp on some planet somewhere, I’m still trying to find where and I’m sure Matt is, too, if he hasn’t found Dad already. They were going to throw Matt into a - gladiatorial arena, but Shiro injured him so he couldn’t fight and took his place… Shiro apparently spent a while doing a lot of that for other people until Ulaz sent him to us. Matt got sent off to another camp, but he must’ve escaped or been rescued somewhere, because I found some footage of him in a Galra security archive, breaking in somewhere with some rebels.” She frowned, looking away, downcast. “…I’ll find them, Mom. We’ll come home together, I promise.” 

“Take care of yourself? And promise me you won’t try to do this alone.” Colleen motioned around Katie, to the rest of the room and Allura visible in the background. 

“I promise.” She looked around where everyone was. “I already learned that lesson. It might’ve worked out at the time, since it meant Sendak wasn’t watching out for me when he tried to lock everyone out and take the Castle, but it’s not the kind of thing I want to put everyone through again.” 

There was quiet, then an interruption as there was a knock at the door on Colleen’s end; she flagged for “one moment” and ducked out of the kitchen warily.

Lance perked up on the side from the muffled voices alone, even though they were still too indistinct to tell what was said. He slid in, shuffling to sit next to Pidge in front of the camera. 

After a couple of minutes, Colleen returned, trailing a slim, well-dressed Hispanic lady; after a couple beats and the tail end of “-actually in a call with them right now” from Colleen, the other woman looked at the camera and grinned.

“Ey, hermano, it’s good to see you in one piece!”

Lance sat straighter, and his grin was just faintly nervous. “Gwen! It’s good to see you, too!”

"I was nearby and between trips, so when I got the message about Colleen, I had to turn around and swing by." She grinned; Colleen was smiling, and already seemed more at ease than she'd been when they'd called before. "Listen, before I stop hogging the call, can I ask you guys to call me and let me know when you're swinging back by Earth?" Her smile had gone a little sharper, and definitely plotting.

"Hoboy." Lance looked around the room over his shoulder. "I mean, I've got no problem with it, but I'd want to see how much everybody else wants to be front page news, yanno? I know there's at least one who'd probably rather not have be in any pictures, if you get the drift." His glance only barely passed by Kolivan, who was on the other side of the room and out of the screen's view. Kolivan gave him a quiet, weary nod.   
Gwen rolled her eyes. "That's most of the point of asking, but if you're bringing the giant mechanical lion and all of that back here, it's going to be hard to avoid, you know." 

They'd caught Allura's attention, and she wandered into frame, peering around Lance's shoulder with a questioning look. Lance startled for a moment, then motioned between her and the screen.

"Gwen, this is Princess Allura. Allura, this is my sister, Gwen. She's a photojournalist - takes a lot of photos, writes some articles and reports, specializes in going to the crazy dangerous places sane people avoid." 

Allura nodded, recognition dawning as she raised a hand in a wave. "I certainly wouldn't mind being available, if we have the time for it - hopefully it will just be because we're no longer worried about leading the Galra to your planet, and not because we're needed to defend it." 

"I'd be heading to meet up with you whether it’s safe or not, to be perfectly honest." Gwen raised both hands. "Really though, I'd ask if I could publish something _now_ , but I don't think anyone would have enough credibility for any of this without more available proof."

"Story of a lifetime, eh?" Lance raised an eyebrow.

"Are you kidding?" Gwen's eyes narrowed and the smile went from sharper to just cold. "This one's personal. We all got that report that you were dead in an accident, and I want to be the first one to throw egg on the Garrison's face for hiding whatever they might know about all of this." 

"...When that time comes..." Colleen had been listening on the side, and finally spoke up, tapping Gwen's shoulder gently. "Would you be willing to add anything personal from the families on this?"

"It would be my pleasure." 

It was a moment where the surreal awkwardness between the women on that end of the line disappeared, replaced by the distinct solidarity of revenge plans. Pidge was smug beside him, and Lance suddenly felt a twinge of pity for Iverson and the rest of the Garrison getting his sister and Pidge's mother both aimed at him. 

The poor bastards were never going to know what hit them.

"Anyway, I'm mostly here for moral support and helping out, so I'll hand this call back over proper." Gwen stepped back, and Colleen turned long enough to point out where the coffee cups, sugar and cream were before returning her attention to the screen.

"So. It sounds like you jumped the Garrison's schedule on becoming an intergalactic hero." 

Katie gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah... I mean, it's not what I'd planned to do, but..." She fidgeted with the bottom of her coat. "You're okay with it? I mean, as much as I want to tell you everything's fine it... really is a warzone." 

Colleen closed her eyes, tilting her head with a shift of her shoulders. "I'm going to be worried about you no matter what, but from the sound of things, you've done a lot to be proud of." 

Katie looked back over her shoulder, to Allura; the princess smiled, and three of the mice popped their heads up, Chulatt waving a thumbs-up. 

"...yeah, I guess I have. It's all been going so fast, and with so much going on, that I haven't really thought about it a lot." She turned back to the monitor with a smile. "I mean, we've saved entire planets and a few civilizations, and we took down a battlecruiser and a couple of their most feared officers in our first week. ...Actually you know we're hitting a point where've fought through fleets of battlecruisers, and those things are _huge_ , with ion cannons that're really slow but can put a hole in a moon if they get a solid hit." 

"Well, I hope you aren't planning on just leaving it at that." 

"Of course not!"

It became apparent quickly that Colleen was used to her occasional tendency to ramble without taking a breath, and had a good feel for when to wedge in questions or nudge her to breathe; after a minute or two the tangents started to settle down, Katie spacing out her sentences more evenly and giving more pauses between things, the rushed narration relaxing as it sank in slowly that she actually had time to talk and her mother wasn't going anywhere. 

Colleen was also making sure to fish in questions to make sure she was giving enough explanation to make sense; Pidge got better at including background and context as she settled down from 'get everything in as fast as possible', while Gwen occasionally leaned in with odd detail questions, chasing implications and picking out bits of events and patterns, implied politics and other conflicts. 

By the time she'd reached the Galactic Hub in her retellings, Gwen was starting to have occasional comments that were half questions, half checking her best guesses about the general workings of the Empire.

"There have to be people in a mess like that who're trying to sabotage it or work to dismantle it," Colleen commented during a pause. 

Gwen nodded in agreement. "I've never heard of a government like that who didn't end up with disillusioned people turning against it or people with consciences willing to risk their lives to do something about it." 

Katie blinked, and glanced sideways to Kolivan, out of frame and still reading. Slav was awake, working on his computer screens, but did look up smugly at that. 

" - Well, there are, I'm getting to them? We just didn't know about them yet."

There was a faint huff of a laugh from the Galra by the wall, even though he didn't look up or otherwise betray that he was listening. Gwen and Colleen settled with their drinks to let her continue. 

"So we found a hidden base that was using gravity wells and stellar radiation to mask its presence from any scanners, with battlecruisers coming and going. Allura pulled a shapeshifting thing to pass for Galra and smuggled Shiro onto one of the battlecruisers so they could give me access to the computers to dig for intel, and while we were waiting, we saw this ... weird thing in a cloak collecting this big vial from one of the ships; everybody was acting like it was something important." She paused, frowning and figuring out how to phrase it. 

"Keith decided to sneak after the creepy thing to see what it was up to, and it turned out to be kind of a stupid idea, but... he sent back this transmission with this room full of other vials to us and Coran? And the creepy 'Druid' thing was doing something to convert the stuff in the vials into the fuel cells we've seen the Galra ships using. Coran said it was a room full of Quintessence, and was trying to figure out how they'd get that much that fast."

Gwen steepled her fingers and gave Colleen a shaded, unsettled look, which got a nod in return; she took that as a sign to go ahead and ask. "...Didn't you say something before about that being something like life essence?"

"Yeah, basically."

"And there's probably other hubs like that one, if they're being used as central stops for the cruisers."

Katie nodded.

Colleen frowned, eyes narrowed, picking up the idea where Gwen had left off. "What were they doing, killing planets?"

There was silence, and Katie gave a very nervous laugh, with a faint twitch; the Komar was still recent in everyone's memory.   
Gwen raised an eyebrow, and they both settled to let Katie continue. 

"...We ... well, when Shiro first got back, he'd yelled something about that at the Garrison people but they weren't listening - his memory was a mess for a while, too, so I don't think he remembered what he meant after he woke up, and so much was going on that we hadn't thought about it. You're right though, they did have a planetkiller they were using to harvest. We... well, the Princess and -"

She paused, glancing sideways again, then took a deep breath. "The two leaders of the people you just predicted being there went into the command center to destroy it in the fight that left the Castle and everything the mess it is." Kolivan seemed to still be reading, but she knew he was listening and wasn't sure how much of a raw nerve she was hitting. "...Kolivan's one of them. Antok didn't make it back." 

There was silence; for all the talk of wars, it was something that should've been self-evident that there were people dying, but there was an uncomfortable sense of perspective setting in, the narration of stories that she had to admit were basically heroic suddenly having reality shoved in with a name and a sign of familiarity. None of them had really had time to know the other Blade that well, but he'd been on ship and around while they were preparing, full of quiet sarcastic commentary; she’d caught fragments of friendly teasing and almost old-married-couple razzing between Kolivan and Antok when the rest of them were mostly out of earshot. 

Colleen opened her mouth, then folded her hands in front of her, eyes down and searching for words. 

Somewhere in the silent pause, it registered that Slav had moved on the other side of the room, intent on carefully rearranging some of the stray cushions and blankets, undoing and redoing whatever he was trying to shape them into repeatedly with almost inaudible muttering and occasional noises of frustration.

“That’s the part I thought had to be there that I wasn’t trying to fish for. I’ve worked war zones, I know it’s not pretty.” Gwen let out a breath, shaking her head. “Sorry about that.” 

“No it’s… it’s fine. I mean it’s not fine, Antok wasn’t even the first and I’m not even one of the people that knew any of them well, but - it’s not you.” She went silent, shoulders slumped. “I don’t want anyone else to die for us.” 

“We all know what our life expectancy is before we go out to do anything.” Kolivan wasn’t anywhere in frame, but being audible to Katie meant it was definitely something Colleen and Gwen could hear. 

"I know that, but-" Katie turned in frustration. "It's been what, _three_ of your people in a few months?! Because of us? That's not - I know you all came into this knowing you _could_ die out here, but I don't _want_ anyone else dying for us!"

Kolivan sighed heavily, shaking his head, and moved from the wall, the screen he'd been reading on vanishing as he walked over to sit down next to Katie. On the call, Colleen had her hands wrapped around her mug, head down and expression fallen; Gwen was rubbing her temples, half about to say something that she held onto when Kolivan entered the frame. 

Katie had her legs folded, shoulders stiff, and pulled back to rest her hands on her ankles, jaw set unhappily.

"I want you to understand that we never wanted this, either." He was hunched over, leaning down as best he could to be close to her eye level; it was awkward and required him folding in an impressive amount. "We're all here _because_ none of us want this. All of us would rather live, and are doing as much as we can to remain living in spite of what the universe has become." 

She nodded, half-glancing away; Allura had started to stand from her bench, but sat back down, listening with her hands folded in her lap. Hunk was fidgeting with one of the containers, looking away, Lance was somewhere behind her staying quiet, and Keith was still out of sight. 

"You might be fortunate enough to come from a world where you lived most of your life without this shadow over it, but you wouldn't be here if you hadn't made the same choice we did - to risk our lives for the chance to do something, rather than stand down and let it happen." He gave that a moment. "We've done more in these past few months than has been accomplished in a _very_ long time, more than the lifespans of most of your civilizations from what you've said before. I would rather have my people with us, but since they can't be, all that we _can_ do is continue on with what they put their lives towards." 

Katie swallowed hard and nodded, looking away. "...I understand." She sank down, shoulders sagging. "It's just... it doesn't feel right when we're the ones that're supposed to make sure people _aren't_ dying."

"You are not gods, and as close as Voltron may be to one, it and the lions have limits. Unless you learn to rewrite existence and history, there will always be something that falls outside your ability." He put a hand on her head that nearly engulfed it, smoothing hair back.

Colleen sighed on the call, turning her attention to Kolivan. "Thank you, for being there. I'm -", she laughed weakly, "I work in a veterinary clinic, taking care of pets; our area is peaceful, and the Garrison never said anything about any hostile forces lurking around our solar system when they sent everyone out. We weren't prepared at all for this." 

He gave a resigned half-nod; it was occasionally glaringly obvious. 

"You shouldn't have to go through this. Any of you." Colleen’s voice was quiet. 

Kolivan made a quiet rumbling noise and a shrug, face scrunched with a couple teeth showing on the side. "Tell that to the Empire's hierarchy." 

Gwen half-laughed bitterly. "It's not really any different, is it? A few assholes with power ruin things for everyone." She turned to look behind Katie, where Lance had shrunk down sitting and fallen quiet. "Now you know why I didn't want to talk about some of my trips before, at least with you and the younger kids, hermano - and I'm mostly a photographer, the most I can do is take some pictures, write something down, and hope it means things don't get forgotten or ignored; maybe lend a hand with first aid triage now and then." 

The off-kilter laugh got Katie scooting to turn so that she could see Lance, who was still sitting next to her, making a sad and failing attempt at acting like nothing was wrong; he gave up when he saw the looks he was getting from everyone in his line of sight. "Yeah, it's awful. I dunno if I _want_ to get used to it."

"You don't" came nearly at the same time from both Kolivan and Gwen.   
"But at least you can do more than I can to try to stop it," Gwen added.

Lance had another broken sounding half-laugh and shrugged. 

Kolivan sat up straighter, staring down. "In the last week we destroyed the Komar and ended Zarkon after _ten thousand years_. Particularly in light of all that we've lost, I am not having that dismissed as not worth it." 

"Aren't you the one that was reminding us to not act like it's over?" 

There was another, more noticeable sound that tipped into a growl, and Kolivan's face rumpled in frustration. "No, it isn't _over_ , and it might be a very long time before it's truly over. But." He lingered on the word for a couple moments, enough for Pidge to briefly appreciate the amount of teeth Galra had. "We have not survived this long against the odds we just _drastically altered_ without placing value in what we _do_ manage, which has usually been far less with far more casualties than this." 

Lance was staring up, eyes wide, and gave a sharp, hurried nod, as he had his own moment of being starkly reminded that Kolivan was easily at least three or four times his size with sharp teeth and claws. 

“You do not ‘get used to it’, you find reasons to keep going _in spite of it_.” 

Pidge edged forward a little to be less in between Lance and the Galra leader. 

Lance nodded again, although there was a question of how much of what had been said he’d actually processed versus how much he had decided to agree with anything Kolivan said while the Blade was a few feet away and he was out of armor.

“I remember hearing my father say once,” Allura interjected, “that there were times they had to just stop and tally how many people were alive that wouldn’t have been because of their intervention, when that particular hole came up. I hadn’t thought about it as much at the time.” She nodded to Kolivan. “If it wouldn’t bother you, of course. I know you were the closest to Antok here.”

Kolivan gave a heavy sigh. “Antok might have thrown something at me in private if I argued with anything that would help keep this together and moving at a time like this.”

“You did sound like you weren’t anywhere near caught up on what you’d all done,” Colleen added gently from the video screen. “If you’re okay with continuing.”

Pidge laughed nervously. “Well… it gets a little worse before it gets better.”

There was a quiet snort from the corner, and Pidge glanced back to find Keith not entirely out of his corner, but at least leaning on one of the crates where he could be seen. 

Lance raised an eyebrow; his own slump had at least passed out of being visible. “You’re the one who decided to charge Zarkon there, buddy.” 

“And if I hadn’t, he would’ve gotten the Black Lion and we would’ve all been dead.”

“GUYS.” Pidge shot a glare at both of them over her shoulder before she returned her attention to the call, trying to pick up where she’d left off. There weren’t really further interjections beyond questions from Colleen or Gwen - who both seemed to be picking what they were asking about more carefully after what had happened - although she found herself turning occasionally to check things with the others, and Keith did cut in to confirm that no, the fight with Zarkon had been as one-sided as the impression Pidge had gotten in between dealing with the fleet.

Allura’s idea at least seemed to work at shifting the mood; it was impossible to avoid how narrow things were, or that there were other losses along the way, but there was some concerted effort to keep things from centering in on it again. Kolivan was silent for much of it, even if he had resigned himself to being visible and involved. Slav settled out of whatever he'd been focused on and wandered over to curl up next to Kolivan, listening and staying mostly quiet, almost half-asleep.  
Somewhere closer to caught up, there was a flicker from above, and the lights came on, the room suddenly much less dim and dark. 

There was a quiet pause, Pidge and Lance craning up at the ceiling, and then Lance gave a cheer that Hunk and Pidge picked up and carried; Coran made it back into the room before the celebration had died down, and only made it two steps in before he'd been picked up in a hug by Hunk, Pidge pointing off-frame with a jubilant, "Coran got the lights back!"

Coran passed by heading for the food stores, routing past the device long enough to wave. "Hello again, Miss Holt!" 

Pidge almost followed, then turned back, moving the screen up off the floor where she'd been sitting. "Hunk and I should probably go back to helping Coran if we're that close to getting the Castle working again, and I know we caught Lance's parents pretty late, too, so I should let him have the device for a while. I can call you back when we're moving again, right?"

Colleen laughed and shook her head, raising her hands. "Whenever you have a chance; I might not be able to drop everything if I'm at work, but I'll always be happy to hear from you." 

"Mom? I'm really glad to see you again. I hope it'll be in person soon." She smiled, with a half-temptation to hug the screen, as useless as it would be. "I love you."

"I love you too. Take care, and be careful." Colleen picked up the phone, holding it up on her end. "I'm proud of you."

Pidge almost ended the call, but stopped, hand hovering over the button. "You know, when it's quieter here, we'll come get you. I'd love to take you to see everywhere, and introduce you to Ryner and everyone." She looked off camera. "I'll see you soon."

She ended the call, stepping back still for a moment before she started to turn to follow Coran, then realized Slav and Kolivan were listening, an odd smile of amusement cracking the Galra leader's face. 

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know if I would call it 'funny' exactly." Kolivan tilted his head. "All of you are the first ones I've heard speaking of the end of the empire as a real thing who weren't children." 

"Wasn't that your goal all along?"

"An eventual dream, perhaps; but we've all long accepted that it would not be a thing happening within our lifetimes. The best we've ever been able to do is slow its expansion and make hindrances of ourselves while we sought for some way to do something more long-term meaningful - or at least, to buy breathing room for those who would come after us, that they might find a chance we never did." 

"Geez, that's depressing." Lance settled down sitting next to her, cross legged.

Kolivan only shrugged, and looked to Slav, who was already starting to entrench himself in a circle of light screens again. "Slav, what are our odds looking like in this reality anymore?"

"Mmm?" Slav looked up, taking a moment to process that he was being spoken to and what had been said, then thought for a moment. "Odds of what now?"

"The end of the Galra Empire occurring within our lifetime. In this reality."

Slav thought hard, rubbing under his beaklike mouth. "Yours or theirs?" 

Kolivan raised an eyebrow, but left whatever question had occurred for later. "Mine, for the time being."

There was another long pause as Slav occasionally mumbled to himself, some of it "But if that-" and some of it bits of equations. "Dismal! But actually present, and it might be possible. it is an improvement!"

Kolivan chuckled, as if that were actually encouraging. 

"Within theirs - well, I suppose it depends on which one, and the interference of the lion, and how long that extends....." Slav paused again, and actually seemed confused. "I couldn't say." He shrugged with his upper four arms.

Kolivan looked back to the paladins. "There's been times in the past he's refused to answer questions like that." 

"So you guys have been doing this for all this time and you've never really expected to win?", Lance asked, worried and almost subdued. 

"It would be either that, or give up and accept Zarkon defining all of our existence - and give up on everything Zarkon has wished to erase of our people. What would you have done, faced with this and without being handed one of the only powers capable of challenging Zarkon's rule?"

Lance opened his mouth, then shrank in, hands folded around his ankles. Pidge put a hand up on his shoulder. 

"...I dunno. I mean, I want to say that I'd do the same thing you guys have been doing..." Lance rubbed the back of his head. "But I'm not sure I could survive like that."

"You'd manage." 

There was a moment of silence as both of them looked up; nobody had even noticed Keith finally fully leaving the set of storage containers he'd wedged himself in between, except perhaps Kolivan, who was partly facing that part of the room. 

Kolivan briefly inclined his head acknowledging Keith's full entrance into the conversation. 

Lance was still lost even after Pidge had recovered to a weak smile, staring at Keith in confusion and half-mouthing questions he wasn't quite getting into words.

"We've known what we were up against from the beginning. Whatever else's been going on, I've never heard you talk about giving up or packing it in and surrendering." 

There were a few more half-mouthed not-questions, and Lance finally managed, "...You OK?"

Keith raised an eyebrow. "...Yeah?"

Pidge mirrored it, more skeptically, and Keith realized a moment later that Allura was also giving him a suspicious look at that. Keith had the sudden feeling that if he tried to dodge they'd both possibly make him regret it, and that was without Hunk's threats from earlier. "I'm not _great_ but it's not like I'm accomplishing anything hiding out and moping any longer, either." He edged a little further from the bench where Allura was; Lance was still between him and Pidge. 

Lance still seemed confused and vaguely concerned, or suspicious, Keith wasn't sure which. 

"...What?"

"...I dunno, I was half expecting some kind of bad joke or something."

Keith ducked his head, looking away. "Look, I know I'm not great at this whole 'encouragement' thing, but I really don't feel like fighting right now, and it's probably a lousy time for it anyway." He ran a hand through his hair, and folded his arms, leaning back on the crates. "I'm pretty sure even with ... everything, that I'm not the only one who still feels like they were hit by a truck that backed over them a few times for good measure." 

Lance stared at him for a couple long seconds, narrow and focused, then gave him a lopsided grin. "Thanks, then."

Keith was fidgeting with his sleeve; he did look over enough to give a small, acknowledging nod, then after a bit of awkward shifting weight, he wandered the long way around the two of them and the device in the middle of the room to the storage containers with their food and water supplies. 

Lance had been checking his own phone more and more often for what the local time would be at home, finally pulling his nerves together to step forward and make a call at a proper time of day. 

The call barely picked up before there was a chorus of voices, people crowding around where the screen was while his parents and older relatives were trying to herd the younger ones into some semblance of order. For all of his nerves, there was a grin growing on his face just listening to it; his younger nephews were both popping up in front trying to get his attention, a couple young cousins joining them, aunts and uncles leaning in. 

There were a few minutes just on introductions, Lance rattling off every one of his family by name and almost veering into stories about them before getting interrupted by one of his nephews asking about the alien princess and the other asking about who 'the big guy' was; Kolivan took another large step back at the awkward realization he'd walked into the back of the frame. Keith was perfectly happy to step half behind him, letting the bigger Blade draw attention. 

"Alright, alright, I get it, I know you all know Hunk -", Hunk waved from the side of the frame, "This is Katie Holt, but we've known her as Pidge for most of this year or so; she got assigned as our comm officer, and she's been doing all kinds of amazing things with the computers and messing with the alien ships and stuff. That's Keith hiding in back - ...yes that Keith-", he said, cutting off his brothers and one young cousin suddenly looking suspicious - "Look, we're cool now, okay?" 

"But I thought-"

"And we've just been through a lot, so if any of you repeat a _single word_ of anything I said about him before, Blue and I will _freeze your rooms solid_ and dump you in the ocean, alright?" 

He glared at all of the kids in turn. "I mean it."

There was some mumbling and cowed nods; Keith did lean around Kolivan enough to give Lance a suspicious raised eyebrow before deciding he actually didn't want to ask. 

"ANYWAY that's Kolivan he's hiding behind. He's like, Keith's uncle or something." Lance was going to stubbornly continue onward as if he hadn’t just averted disaster. 

One of the cousins leaned up in frame, trying to find a way to peer around at Keith. "Keith's an alien?" 

"Half or something, yeah! It's kinda cool, he can get into their stuff and everything. We've had each other's back in there and everything." 

Keith flinched, and shrank back with Kolivan between him and the camera again; Kolivan stared down at him and sidestepped partly out of the way. 

There was a few suspicious stares at Keith anyway from the younger parts of the family; Keith shifted uncomfortably and gave Kolivan a brief, betrayed look, which Kolivan very pointedly ignored. 

“Look, I mean it when I said we’ve been through a lot lately, okay? He can still be kind of an asshole but he’s not actually _that_ bad of one.” Lance folded his arms; his aunt tugged over her daughter and said something quiet that got a nod, while his mother nudged both of his brothers on the shoulder and got grudging shuffling. 

“So what have you been doing, anyway? You said there was a war going on last time you called.” She gave a pointed look to Slav, sitting to the side of them with all of his hands folded as if he hadn’t said anything before at all. 

“Yeeaah, so.” Lance rubbed the back of his head. “Apparently the whole thing with the alien battlecruiser in orbit and Blue leading it off got noticed.”

There was a chorus of confirmation from the younger part of the family, jumbling in chatter about it being all over the news. 

“So basically, Pidge here - Katie -“, he corrected; if they were going to be in regular contact with Colleen, they’d end up more used to hearing Pidge’s real name over the alias she’d been going by. The chatter hushed when the kids realized they were going to get the story. “Was listening in on their transmissions for a while, and trying to figure out what they were up to; they’d been noisy and something was coming, so she drug all of us out to go look when it came down. This alien pod crashes, and the Garrison brass are all over it - the place is swarmed, we can’t even get closer than this ledge out of the way.” 

Lance started out the retelling sounding more tired, but was getting more animated as he continued. “She got into their cameras to see what was going on, and it turned out to be Shiro, just getting away from getting held captive after they got taken. We were trying to figure out how to get down there without getting caught ourselves, when this bunch of explosions goes up on the far side of the camp, and most of the Garrison people go running to check it out… and that’s when Keith came speeding in on a bike headed for where they’d taken Shiro.” 

He pointed back at Keith over his shoulder; Keith had resigned himself to being visible, even if he was stubbornly not looking at the screen. “We caught up just behind him while he was cutting Shiro loose, but that was just before the Garrison security got back in, so we were running for our lives and all ended up on Keith’s airbike. He lost them taking it straight down a cliff, then him and Hunk and Pidge figured out how to find what the aliens were looking for out in the desert, and we all went to get Blue.” 

His youngest nephew raised a hand. “What were you doing?”

Lance shrank a little, then redoubled his claim on the story. “I helped carry Shiro out - he was pretty drugged. And, when we found Blue, she woke up and called me in. That whole chase that made the news with us getting Sendak’s attention and leading them away from Earth? That was me flying.” He swung out of his brief insecure fidget and puffed up; it apparently did the job of giving his siblings something to go awed over. The rest of the family was listening, letting him play to the kids now that he’d found his confidence again, lapsing back into theatrics and preening. 

“Then what happened?”

“Well, Blue dropped a wormhole and took us across the universe to this place called Arus where the Castle - the ship we’re on now - was hidden, so we went in looking around and found the Princess, who’d been asleep for ten thousand years; I caught her and held her when she fell out of the cryopod while she was still waking up.” 

Lance looked proud of himself, but Allura had walked closer to stand just by his shoulder, arms folded, raising an eyebrow at him skeptically.

“You sure that’s what happened?” His nephew was pointing at her. “’Cause that’s the look you usually get before you get shoved in the ocean.” 

Allura smiled, pointily, and Lance edged away, shoulders hunching in a sulk. “Okay so I said something about ‘hello beautiful’ or whatever that I don’t really remember now, then she made fun of my ears and pushed me.” 

There was a quiet “I like her already” from his aunt in back. 

As he continued on, there were occasional questions and moments of worry from his parents and some of the rest of the family; he trailed off nervously after mentioning wandering away from the party on Arus to look at the star maps with Coran, suddenly realizing that ‘almost dying’ was that soon into everything. The awkward shuffle caught at least five or six sudden stares of more worry and suspicion, and three variations on “Lance, what happened”. 

“I uh. A Galra drone came in and at first I thought it was Rover, except… Pidge wasn’t there and Rover never left her side… it was acting weird and going for the big crystal that runs the castle, and. Apparently warning beeping before bombs go off is a thing across the universe? I kinda tried to get Coran out of the way and I don’t… actually remember most of what happened after that for a while, except what everybody else told me.” He’d deflated, shoulders sinking, looking anywhere but at the camera. 

“It was pretty bad.” Keith was staying where he was visible, even if he was uncomfortable with it, and his voice was quieter than usual, eyes on the ground. Hunk had winced where he was standing, and was fuss-fidgeting, looking away from the screen. “We were worried you wouldn’t make it - Hunk and Coran went to get a new crystal because the infirmary was down, and Shiro was looking after you all through that.” Keith folded his arms, looking up and at the ceiling on the other side of the room, away from the screen. “It’s a good thing the healing pods work as well as they do.”

There was silence in the room; Lance wrapped his arms closer around him, awkwardly on one foot before adjusting his weight, trying not to look at the screen. 

“And you still managed to wake up long enough to get a shot off disarming Sendak so we could get him trapped.”

Lance laughed nervously; of course Keith wasn’t going to let that get forgotten, even in the middle of telling his family about the time he’d almost died. 

He skipped past actually saying that part. “I’ve been fine since, though - really, no more close calls! Well, kind of. Mostly. We all almost died this last fight but luckily the lions are stronger than creepy black magic planetkillers.” His lopsided grin was pure anxious nervous energy, and god, he’d just lapsed into that around the kids, too. 

“Mijo?” 

His mother was worried and had pulled his brothers a little closer, there was a lump in his throat, and the screen was two feet away and he couldn’t step through it. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” As noisy as it’d been a minute ago, everyone had gone quiet, letting her be the focus. 

“I’m - I’ll be okay, really, it just kinda catches up sometimes? We’ve done all these amazing things and seen all these amazing things, and it’s been great, but -” He made several messy hand gestures. “It’s like Slav said last night, it’s also a war and it’s pretty awful sometimes. I mean, I haven’t even had it the worst here-”

“Lance don’t even,” Hunk warned, suddenly snapped out of his own anxious fussing. 

“Mijo, you can talk to us anytime now, right?” Her voice was gently urging.

“…Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head.

“And Hunk, you’re still looking after him, right?” She fixed Hunk with an almost warning glare.

“Yes Mama.” Hunk straightened with a nod. 

“Sorry to worry everybody like that. I mean it that it’s not that bad out here, really.” He paused, starting to recover and shove the rattle back. “I’ve got a lot of pictures to send everybody, and at least I got the whole almost dying thing out of the way in the beginning?” He gave the screen a thumbs-up and an only slightly less panicky grin that earned him three different eyerolls from his family and at least four behind him.

He caught worried glances occasionally as he went back to the rest of the narrative, and realized partway through that some of the ‘was that really what happened’ or ‘what are you leaving out’ questions often followed someone looking around him - where Kolivan was sitting on the bench in the background, Keith nearby and Hunk having found a seat on the other side of him. He never caught one of them rolling their eyes or making any other gestures when he looked, but he did catch a few noises of disbelief from Hunk. 

Pidge came back in on the tail end; Lance shut down the device, taking a few steps back to drape over the bench with one of the pillows. 

“Okay, so. We’ve got gravity restored to some of the ship, but it’s still pretty unpredictable. Climate control and the air filtration and circulation are mostly good, the areas of the ship where those aren’t working yet are locked off and will do warning alerts if you try to go into them. The kitchen’s still down. Lights are good, though, and the intercom systems and computers are mostly online. I dunno if I’d call it livable yet, but it’s getting there.” 

Keith gave a sigh of relief, gathering up what he’d brought with him when Coran had herded them into the emergency shelter area; he waited for the door to be clear to head out. Lance perked up, waited a few minutes for Keith to be well clear of the nearby halls, and followed suit; he actually seemed more enthusiastic about the prospect of being randomly stuck without gravity. 

Kolivan looked over to Slav; Slav shook his head, pointedly pulling up a couple of work screens. “I will help with the final repairs after I have enjoyed the relative quiet enough to feel less of an immediate need to take out entire parts of the laughably archaic systems to rebuild and replace with something more efficient.” 

Allura buried her head in her hands with a groan, then wandered out herself, declaring that she needed to get out of the shelter for a little while herself. 

Hunk waved for Pidge’s attention from the bench. “You want me to take shift with Coran?” 

“For a little bit - I’ll catch up in a few.”

Hunk nodded, standing up, stretching his hands before he gathered up tools and walked out. 

Kolivan shrugged, sitting down on one of the crates and less inclined to test out the unstable gravity. 

Pidge shifted weight from one foot to the other, and finally straightened to walk over. “Kolivan?”

The Blade looked up silently.

“I wanted to thank you for earlier, and all. We’re not really your people, and. I don’t know, we probably owe you an apology for dragging you into all of our baggage like this, and uh. I know we’re not really at our best right now.” 

Kolivan put a clawed hand to his temples with a quiet rumble. “I happen to be in your living space, at a time when we have a distinct lack of options for privacy; by the time we’re repaired enough for that to not be an issue, we likely won’t have much room to breathe. You’re making the most of the downtime you have.” 

She blinked. “Well, yeah, but it still seemed like something worth apologizing for. This isn’t really what you signed up for.”

He shrugged, tilting his head away with an expression of faint exasperation. “I ‘signed up’ for seeing through the rest of this war. I hope you don’t think dealing with people barely out of training who’re still making sense of the inside of their own heads is new to me.” 

“I guess not.” It was something that seemed like it should’ve been obvious, even if it’d never really come up; the Blades didn’t just come up out of nowhere, and she’d only ever seen the two leaders, who were old veterans, and Ulaz, who was older than any of the Paladins and definitely experienced and mostly steady. “I mean it’s probably not usually the fate of the universe resting on the new people and I know the old paladins were all apparently already pretty experienced when they got the lions, but-”

Kolivan held up a hand for quiet, and she tripped over the last word.

“You killed Zarkon. I think you’ve earned a few days of showing less composure than usual.” 

“…We’re not that bad are we?”

That was a raised eyebrow, or the closest equivalent.

“…Okay no you’ve gotten to deal with Keith being moody and Lance on no sleep, I can’t say that can I.”

“Not really.” 

She sighed, and walked over to get something to drink and sit down cross-legged next to Slav, who had only two screens up, occasionally boredly poking at schematics.

Some of it was the castle, and there were a lot of markups on one of them.

Whatever universal translator ability the lions had given them only went so far, and didn’t do a great deal for reading most of the time. She was learning Altaean and had been picking up fragments of Galra by osmosis from spending so much time messing in their systems, but Slav’s notes were in some unholy mess of two other languages and bits of some kind of Galra pidgin code. She wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that some of the symbols were a language he’d invented just to keep people from reading his work. 

Considering some of what she’d caught mention of digging around in the prison’s computers, she couldn’t really fault him being paranoid about his work getting stolen. 

“Slav, do you have anybody?” It was an idle question while she watched him work. It only half seemed to register, even if he did make a noise acknowledging that he’d heard. “Like, any family or anything?”

He stopped in his notes. “Maybe? Yes. Not sure?” His fussing at the symbols had changed pattern a little; the organization wasn’t the same as whatever code he’d been using, and he was undoing it to put them back occasionally. “Some colony - no, no, a station-” 

He’d gotten further on re-organizing the code, then scowled at it, starting to fuss the symbols back into place.

“Uh - sorry, I didn’t mean to-” She put a hand over to try for whatever might pass for a consoling shoulder-pat; he darted back, coiling away sharply, and she pulled her hands back. “Do you want me to help with - something?” 

“No no no no I need to fix it!” He scrambled back to his screens, sorting the symbols.

She wasn’t sure what to do, hand half-raised; she hadn’t even realized Kolivan had moved until there was a very large hand reaching down over her shoulder to push her hand down, then made a gesture for her to hold still.

He sat down on the other side of Slav, a little closer than what she’d managed, asking occasional quiet questions she could barely hear.

The symbols on his notes were re-organized six or seven times before Slav finally took a deeper breath, and turned to look at her. “Not in this universe, no.”

There was no further explanation, just a few minutes spent putting everything back where it’d been to start with as if it were a struggle to rearrange it back before he finally closed the screens.

The inventor slunk off, gathering up most of the cast off blankets and pillows, calmly arranging them into a narrow nest fort with a couple blankets pinned over it in a canopy, the opening barely big enough for him; once it was built, he crawled in, the whole thing shifting a little as he settled. 

She shrunk down, shoulders hunched. “I didn’t mean to set anything off like that.”

“It’s not that hard.” Kolivan was as level as ever, although there was very weary concern.

“Was he always…” She nodded Slav’s direction. “Before they got to him?”

Kolivan closed his eyes. “It wasn’t as bad, before.”

She nodded, and stayed still, thinking; the room was quiet.

Eventually people began filtering back in; the Castle was closer to working, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable yet, and the occasionally unpredictable gravity had even managed to get to Lance finally. 

Most of them wandered back as they’d been; Keith came in last, in full armor. He stared intently at the device for a good few minutes, focused and intent, in a way that was becoming vaguely worrying.

“You know, I do have someone to call.” 

He had the attention of half the room with that, particularly the other three Paladins, who were sharing a sudden sense of dread. Lance sidled over to be where he could see over Keith’s shoulder, while Hunk had his hands full with a storage crate, trying to puzzle through what Keith was doing after his earlier protests of having nobody. There wasn’t anything good he could think of. 

Keith was sifting through contacts on his phone, and the first thing Lance caught was that there was an “unblock” confirmation going by, and Keith allowing location tracking again, which was somewhat redundant when they were far out of range of any Earth satellite; even if it did show anything, it’d probably just be gibberish.

Then the contact-edit screen cleared and he saw the name on the contact.

“Keith no. You can’t be serious, you wouldn’t really…” He stared at Keith in disbelief and denial. 

Keith didn’t seem to be paying attention at all to the protests, and started walking toward the device.

Lance realized Keith really did intend to do it, and the denial turned to horror. “Keith this is the _worst_ idea I’ve ever seen you have -“ 

He wasn’t deterred, tapping the switch to power the device on; Pidge shared a worried glance with Hunk from where she’d been buried in a control panel making last checks, and Hunk sat the crate down, nervous and edging around to get to where he could see what Keith was doing. 

Lance’s attempts at getting Keith’s attention off of the device grew more frantic as Keith continued on, ignoring him. “Keith no. Bad Keith. Don’t you dare bring up that- KEITH NO DO NOT TOUCH THAT CALL BUTTON BAD KEITH!” 

Lance was all but trying to grab Keith’s shoulder, frantic and yet at the same time somehow suspecting he’d be taking his life into his own hands if he did; Hunk leaned around to see the control screen and paled, too late to interfere.

The door opened to Allura returning from the rest of the Castle, and she took note of Lance behind Keith looking about halfway through a frustrated panic attack, Hunk freezing, and Pidge hastily putting the panel back together, while the call out rang. 

The call picked up, and there was a guardedly bewildered “…Commander Iverson speaking, who the Hell is this?”, tinged with disbelief. 

“Exactly who it said it was,” Keith answered, arms folded and glaring at the screen. 

There was a long pause on the other end. “…Is this some kind of joke? Where are you?”

Lance slumped behind him, resigning to fate, and Pidge closed the wall panel with a wince. Allura had an awkward pause, putting together the name with bits of stories they’d told over the course of their time in the Castle. 

“No, Commander, this isn’t a joke. As for where we are, I don’t think we’re even in any part of space you’ve mapped out yet.” Keith’s voice was entirely too even and composed for his state over the past few days, even if his tone was barbed. 

Allura crept over to stand behind him, a hand raised pondering getting his attention; she knew they had plenty of reasons for a grudge, but it was still an authority figure on their homeworld, and possibly not one they wanted to be fighting with - and Keith was definitely being confrontational, even if it was the cold and contained sort.

Keith hit the button to open video, which brought up a view of Lance trying to hide behind him while Allura’s expression dropped to a flat stare.

She had come to terms with Galra not being inherently evil, but there did seem to be some kind of crazy that ran in the species.

The other end came up to Iverson’s office, the commander in uniform, staring at the feed with wary suspicion.

Keith spoke fast, before Iverson could say anything. “Don’t try to ‘cadet’ anyone here; we’re now acting as part of a foreign body, and way outside of your jurisdiction.” He motioned to Allura, who sighed and composed herself, turning to face the camera, expression schooled to controlled neutrality. “And before we go any further, I have a point of protocol to check. In joint operations with allied forces, the effective chain of command is by equivalent ranks for field operations and combat situations, yes?”

Allura had a tiny moment of relief that at least he was framing it around ‘allied operations’.

Iverson nodded, leaning back in his chair away from the phone. “…Yes…”

Keith’s eyes narrowed, and there was a dangerous faint smirk that wasn’t quite angled right, an expression that would’ve shown sharp teeth if he had them. “So if those alien hostiles you’ve been pretending don’t exist aim at Earth, we all outrank you.” 

Iverson stiffened, mouth opened to protest, but kept glancing to Allura uncertainly, then fell back on a careful question. “…How much do you know?” 

Keith motioned over his shoulder, where Pidge was slinking into the frame behind Allura, mostly keeping the Altaean princess between her and the camera. “I know that Pidge was listening to Galra transmissions for a long time before Shiro managed to escape back to Earth, and if Pidge could listen in with a rebuilt laptop, you people _definitely_ had the hardware and instrumentation to know about them long before Kerberos.” 

Keith gave the screen a narrow glare, waiting for some answer. Iverson shifted uncomfortably, with occasional odd glances Allura’s direction. “We had some transmission records to know there was a presence, yes.”

“Look, we’ve been _fighting_ that ‘presence’ since we found the Blue Lion, and if we hadn’t led that battlecruiser away from Earth, there’s no telling what they would’ve done. Shiro wasn’t kidding about them killing entire worlds. You can stop mincing words and dodging the subject.” If they were lucky Sendak would’ve been focused on the mission to retrieve the Lion and not done more than swat at any humans that strayed too close; if they weren’t…

It might have been Iverson’s clear discomfort and the usual dynamic being thrown off, it might have just been the amount of everything they’d been through throwing how frightening Iverson had once been into perspective when weighed against Zarkon, but Hunk edged a little forward, pointing things out from just behind Keith’s shoulder. “We’re also on an alien ship right now, in case you hadn’t noticed. With an alien princess, and Keith’s a half-alien wearing high-tech alien armor. And we’re talking on a comm relay made with the help of an alien engineer.” There was a frustrated noise from Slav on the other side of the device, trying to correct Hunk’s over-use of ‘alien’ to the proper respective species; Hunk continued on as if it hadn’t happened. “We probably know more about the aliens than you do. Just to make that clear.”

Iverson’s face scrunched in a sudden stall at the ‘half-alien’ part, a hand raised, but it lost any war on what to respond to out of that. “Look, we knew they passed through the outer system sometimes looking for something. We knew it was some kind of old weapon. A couple probes were destroyed, but most of them were just ignored, along with any attempt at initiating contact. We didn’t know what to expect.” He held up both hands open.

Allura raised an eyebrow. “Attempting contact is a thoroughly understandable response to foreign ships in your system, but you have no idea how lucky you are that the Galra were apparently disinterested in you.” 

Keith’s glare hadn’t gone away, even if it was turning to an almost condescending frustration. “Why didn’t you tell the Kerberos crew there was a possibility of alien presence?” 

Iverson half-groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Because we thought it was safer to try to avoid them while they were shutting down attempts at contact, and expected them to leave us alone like they had in the past.”

Keith growled at the screen. 

Pidge bristled, stepping around Allura and in front of Hunk to be beside Keith. “And you couldn’t have told the families anything?” 

“Or come up with some better explanation for the news broadcasts than blaming Shiro?”, Keith added.

“You didn’t even bother contacting us, we had to find out from the evening news!” 

The Commander was distracted staring at Pidge, baffled. Lance was on the other side of Keith, and had a visible moment of considering interrupting, but then thought better of it, letting her go this time. 

Iverson squinted at Pidge; Pidge gave him her level worst glare, and took off her glasses.

Allura realized this was about to go up in flames, a little too late to do more than wince. Pidge cut him off before he could say anything, bristling in half-restrained fury and standing right at Keith’s elbow. “I _told_ you I wasn’t going to let you throw me out, and that I was going to find my family! And while you were being a useless lump trying to ignore everything and hoping it went away, we’ve been out here fighting them, and I’ve been trying to find where they threw Dad and Matt!” 

There was disbelief and dawning recognition, then exasperated frustration. Iverson snapped back. “And what were we supposed to do? You know what we had in terms of ships and technology! We couldn’t communicate with them, we couldn’t follow them, even if we wanted to fight them we couldn’t scratch them!” 

Keith’s lip curled, a faint snarl. “Iverson, I’ve been out poking in the caves and sites. I can’t be the only person who knew some of those paintings and signs were there, and even if I _were_ , you’re the one who told me to shut up and forget it instead of making the slightest effort to look.” 

He folded his arms, glaring down at the screen, dangerously still. “You _could’ve_ told the Kerberos crew to look out for and _avoid_ the Galra. You _could’ve_ just told me what happened and gave a good reason to keep it out of sight the public at large. You _could’ve_ been out helping look. Hell, you _could’ve_ listened to Shiro when he escaped, instead of treating him like some kind of dangerous animal. Instead, we ended up doing everything to find a way to fight this - by ourselves, with you acting as an obstacle. If we hadn’t managed in spite of you, Sendak would’ve burned most of Earth.” 

Iverson opened his mouth to argue, then looked away, shoulders hunching as he sat back in his seat. “Fine. What do you want.”

“I want to know that if they do aim at Earth, and we _do_ need to go there to fight them, that you’ll _listen_ this time, and not get in the way.” Keith paused. “And Hunk’s right, too - unless you’re lying to us and that _wasn’t_ just stubborn incompetence, we know more than you do, without even counting Allura or the others who aren’t from Earth.” 

“There’s not much we can do anyway.” Iverson leaned an elbow on the desk, chin resting on one hand.

Allura put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, stepping around; he nodded and took a half-step back.

“Commander Iverson?” 

“What.” 

She gave Keith and Pidge a sidelong, tired glance; Keith raised an eyebrow, daring comment, but between other conversations since they’d come on board and that argument, she knew better. “My name is Princess Allura, of planet Altaea. This ship is mine, and the lions were something my father was a part of.” 

“Are you the one in command?”

She folded her arms, raising an eyebrow. “Likely not in the manner you’re thinking. The lions are part of something powerful and very much alive; they choose their Paladins, and whatever the past history you may have, they’ve been acting as such since they left your planet. The relationship is more cooperative, and if there is a ‘command’, it’s usually fallen jointly to me and to the Black Paladin.”

Iverson’s eyes narrowed at that wording, and he scanned the group gathered, wheels turning, before he had another brief frustrated drop, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Is the Black Paladin present right now?” 

He sounded like he already knew the answer.

Keith stiffened, glaring. Allura brushed his wrist with one hand. “Shiro went missing during the last battle, _very_ recently. This was not entirely a planned call, although given the circumstances, the political situation in the Empire is about to become very… chaotic. I would not put it past one of them to think to draw us out by attacking their otherwise defenseless homeworld, and I’d rather have the prior conflicts addressed during relative quiet rather than a firefight.” 

Iverson shot Keith and Pidge a tired glare of frustration and then nodded to them to Allura.

“I’m keeping my personal opinions separate from political matters right now - but it’s very obvious your personal history with them _is_ enough to have an impact if there were an attack. We need to be able to trust you to share important information, and there does need to be an agreement about at least maintaining enough civility and respect to coordinate.” 

“Tell them that.” He motioned to Keith and Pidge; Pidge bristled, and Keith rolled his eyes. 

The moment it took for Lance to steel himself, fists at his side more for his own benefit than anything, was outside of Allura’s line of sight, but right after he was over her shoulder, playing off half hiding behind her as a familiar lean. “Look, Iverson, I hate to break it to you, and I know I’m like, the last person here you’re going to respect? But you’re the one who started this whole ‘lack of respect’ ball. You treated us like shit when we had to listen to you, and you’re not doing great so far at acting any different now that the playing field’s weighted more the other way. So, yanno, reap what you sow and all that.” 

“If they go near Earth, we’re going to be fighting to stop them, and if you’re not helping, you’re going to get ignored,” Keith added. “And I’m not sure if you should hope Shiro’s back at his post by then or be _afraid_ of that.” He left that hanging; Shiro still didn’t get truly angry lightly, but there was every likelihood the Garrison had earned it for what they were sent into. 

Allura sighed. “We’re not likely to be in much unnecessary contact, but can we request an agreement that, if we are needed to defend your world, you’ll share any potentially relevant information and we’ll make some attempt at civil communication?”

Iverson gave Keith and Pidge another shaded look; Keith had settled to a very typical unhappy neutral with a shrug. “Alright. I’ll agree to that.” 

Iverson did not need to know that Keith had held Pidge’s wrist to stop her from flipping him off, which had only amplified the sullen glare.

“Is there anything else that needs to be said while we have relative peace?” Allura scanned the group; nobody moved, and Lance stepped back to be more out of sight behind her. 

“Then we’ll contact you if there is need, Commander.” Allura reached over to close the call. 

After it ended, she rubbed her temples with a small, frazzled noise, glancing up to catch Kolivan turning his attention back to his reading - but not fast enough for her to miss the brief headshake and half-smile he’d had listening to the whole thing. 

“You said yourself it was better to get it over with now than have it all happen during a firefight.” She wasn’t sure how Keith could manage to be that calm and flippant when he’d been barely keeping from growling at the screen a minute ago; there was no way the same anger wasn’t still there. 

“You managed to be … less hostile for that than I was expecting.” And her comment really did come mostly from having heard, sober and not, comments about Iverson from more than one of them, Keith’s often profanity-laden and near murderously angry. 

Lance came out from behind Allura now that the call was over and he’d had time to pull his nerves back together from the sudden unexpected confrontation. “Should we ever tell him that Gwen’s planning to rip him to pieces?”

Keith shrugged with a noncommittal, bored noise. “Nah.”


End file.
